Most places that sell returns give you one word for the whole thing. Good. Fair. Open box. One word is a summary, and a summary hides the thing you actually wanted to know: is the scratch on the front or the back, does the remote come with it, has anyone turned it on. Bidvana publishes five scores instead, each in the inspector’s own words, with a photo behind every low one. This guide is how to read them in about a minute.
Five scores, no overall grade
An inspected unit is scored on five separate facets: cosmetic, functional, completeness, cleanliness and packaging. Those five scores are the condition. There is no grade above them, no letter, no single star rating that averages a cracked lid against a spotless bowl. The report on the product page shows every one of them, with the inspector’s note and the photo behind it, and the chips on the card summarise only what is not perfect.
Each facet is scored from 1 to 5, but the inspector never picks a number. They pick a word from a fixed list of five, and the word is what you see. Here is what the lists are.
The five facets, one by one
- Cosmetic. How it looks: marks, scuffs, dents, cracks. The words, top to bottom: No marks, Faint marks, Visible wear, Heavy wear or dents, Damaged or cracked. A 4 is the kind of mark you find when you go looking; a 3 is the kind you notice from across the room.
- Functional. Whether it works, when a technician powered it on. Fully works, Works with a minor quirk, Partial function, Major fault, Dead. A quirk is a sticky button or a slow start; partial function means something it is supposed to do, it does not do.
- Completeness. Whether everything that belongs in the box is there. Everything present, Missing a trivial item, Missing a minor accessory, Missing a major accessory, Missing a core part. A trivial item is a twist tie or a manual; a core part is the thing without which the product does not do its job, like a blender’s jar.
- Cleanliness. How clean it was when we got to it. Spotless, Light dust, Needs a wipe, Heavy grime or odor, Permanent stain or odor. We clean units before they ship, so a 3 here tells you about its past, not its future; a 1 or 2 is something cleaning will not fix.
- Packaging. What it ships in. Factory sealed, Retail box in clean shape, Retail box worn, Retail box damaged, No box. This one matters for gifts and for resale, and hardly at all for a vacuum you are going to use tonight.
A facet nobody could judge is marked not assessed rather than scored. Nothing is assumed in our favour: a unit nobody powered on reads as not tested, never as working. Items with nothing to switch on, like a vase, have the functional row left off entirely.
What the chips on the card mean
You do not have to open the report to get the headline. Every product card shows one chip per facet that scored below perfect, in the inspector’s word. The colours are a quick read:
- Green is a 4: a small imperfection worth knowing about, not worth worrying about. Faint marks, Light dust, Retail box worn.
- Amber is a 3: look at the photo before you decide. Visible wear, Partial function, Missing a minor accessory.
- Red is a 1 or 2: a real fault or a real gap, and usually a much lower price to match. Heavy wear, Major fault, Missing a core part.
- No chip means a 5. A card with no condition chips at all is a unit the inspector found nothing to flag on.
Press any chip and you get all five rows with their bars, the lowest facet called out, and a link to the full report. Two grey chips are different: Not inspected means a person has not scored it yet, and Inspected with no scores means a pass from before the five facets existed. Neither one is a claim that nothing was wrong.
What Bidvana Best means
The blue shield is the closest thing to new in the shop, and it is a rule, not a feeling. An inspected unit earns it when four facets qualify at once: cosmetic No marks, functional Fully works, cleanliness Spotless, and completeness either Everything present or Missing a trivial item. All four have to be assessed; a unit nobody checked cannot qualify by default. Items with nothing to power on count as passing functional.
Packaging is deliberately left out. A sealed box and a worn box can both hold a perfect unit, so the shield says the unit qualifies and a packaging chip beside it tells you what it ships in. The shop’s Bidvana Best filter uses exactly the same test as the stamp.
Why a low score always has a photo
Any facet scored 3 or lower has to carry a photo of that exact thing, taken while the unit was in the inspector’s hands. Not a stock image, not a photo of a similar unit: the scuff, the missing part, the stained corner, on this one. The product page publishes it beside the row it belongs to, so a claim about wear is something you can look at rather than take our word for.
The notes work the same way. They are written by the person who held the unit, in their own words, and they tend to say the useful thing: which corner, which accessory, whether the cord was in the box. Read them. They are the closest you can get to turning the thing over yourself.
Final sale, and why
Three scores make a sale final: cosmetic Damaged or cracked, functional Major fault or Dead, or completeness Missing a core part. A unit with any of them is marked Final sale on the card, on the product page and again at checkout, priced for exactly what it is, and cannot be returned. The reason is always one of those three, named on the listing, so there is never a mystery about why.
Not inspected, and Coming soon
Not every unit has been through the bench. A card marked Not inspected was listed straight from the receiving dock with the retailer’s condition assessment and our photos, and no facet scores yet. It is an honest starting point that we stand behind the same way, with the same 3-day guarantee.
A card marked Coming soon is a unit in our warehouse waiting its turn. It shows its price and details, but you cannot buy it until a technician has scored it. Press Request Inspection and it moves up the queue; it can take up to 24 hours. The price will not go up after inspection. It may come down if the unit is in worse shape than the manifest claimed, and in that case the lower price is the one you pay. The Coming soon explainer covers the rest.
How the scores set the price
The price is not a guess either. It starts from the item’s current retail price, takes the discount for its category, and then moves by a set amount for every facet that scored below perfect. The facets that change what you get move it most: a missing accessory or a functional quirk costs more than a worn box, and cleanliness barely moves it at all because we clean the unit before it ships. Two units of the same product with different chips will have different prices, and you can see exactly which chips made the difference.
The guarantee
The report is a promise. If we scored a unit wrong or missed something, tell us within 3 days of delivery and we arrange a return for a full refund. That covers anything not as described, in the scores, the photos or the notes. It does not cover a change of mind, and it does not apply to a unit marked Final sale, which told you its fault before you bought it.
Reading a report in sixty seconds
Read the chips
Green, amber, red, or none. That is the whole condition in one glance. No chips means nothing to flag.
Open the report
On the product page, five rows with their words and bars. The lowest one is the one to think about.
Look at the photo behind any amber or red row
It is the actual mark or the actual gap on this unit. Decide whether you can live with it.
Read the inspector’s note
Which corner, which accessory, whether it was in the box. The note usually answers the question you were about to ask.
Check for Final sale
If it is there, the reason is named. If it is not, the 3-day guarantee applies.
Compare the price to the chips
A unit with one green chip and a big discount is the sweet spot. A unit with an amber chip and a price that has not moved is a good one to make an offer on.
That is the whole system. If you want the formal version, with every anchor word in a table, the rules for not assessed facets and the exact Bidvana Best test, the scoring rules are the reference the product pages follow.
